


Those Christmas Lights

by DontMakeMeFrosty (AvaHasAClosetMurderBoard)



Series: Killervibe Week 2019 [4]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Some Season 3 References, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 04:04:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20464724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaHasAClosetMurderBoard/pseuds/DontMakeMeFrosty
Summary: 'He remembers her laughter, her soft and warm features, the way her eyes sparkled and twinkled along with the small colorful lights of the tree they’d picked together and spent hours decorating. It was a change from the quiet and closed off Caitlin he’d been working with, ever since Ronnie died, ever since the soulmark inked on her skin had faded into nothingness and had left her empty and devoid of feeling.Looking at her now, standing on the other side of the frosted field, it feels like that Caitlin is back once again.'(A Killervibe Soulmark AU)





	Those Christmas Lights

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't planning on posting this one until I finished the Flashpoint prompt but oops my finger slipped.
> 
> Thanks @Starling83 for the beta again! <3

The noise of the forest dies down the moment their eyes meet across the battlefield.

It’s late December, just a few days shy of the holiday season, but for both of them - especially for him - there’s no reason to bother celebrating anything this year. He allows himself to think back, to remember a cozy afternoon spent with her sitting on his old couch, their hands securely wrapped around a hot mug of cocoa while they made plans to spend Christmas together. He remembers her laughter, her soft and warm features, the way her eyes sparkled and twinkled along with the small colorful lights of the tree they’d picked together and spent hours decorating. It was a change from the quiet and closed off Caitlin he’d been working with, ever since Ronnie died, ever since the soulmark inked on her skin had faded into nothingness and had left her empty and devoid of feeling.

Looking at her now, standing on the other side of the frosted field, it feels like that Caitlin is back once again. The warm brown has been replaced by a chilled blue, her lush curls as white as the snow all around them, her face devoid of any emotion. _ _

He knows he shouldn’t have come alone to see her. He knows he should have warned the others of his intentions, even if he knew they would have advised against it. She wasn’t their Caitlin anymore - that much had been made crystal clear when she’d tried to kill them more than once - but Cisco wasn’t about to give up on his best friend. The others may have; but he sure wouldn’t. 

Killer Frost tilts her head and he sees that twisted smile tug at her lips, the one she reserves just for him. She’s fully aware of his inner turmoil by now and doesn’t even try to hide her amusement, perhaps to try and set him off, to have him make the first move; it’s a dance at this point, one that neither wants to lead, but in which both willingly participate. A stray thought crosses his mind, a twisted feeling on how easy it would be to just blast the smirk off her face, and Cisco doesn’t even notice that his hand moves of its own accord until he’s halfway through stretching his arm forward. He stops himself, lets his hand drop back, shakes his head and prays she hasn’t noticed. 

She has..

Her devious smile only grows and she lifts her right hand, palm facing skywards. A crystalline icicle forms there, its tip sharp and glistering dangerously in the moonlight that filters through the trees. She narrows her eyes, challenging. “Come on,  _ Vibe _ ,” she spits out in that voice he finds so unsettling. “Let’s end this, once and for all.”

“No,” he replies firmly and is surprised how strong his voice sounds, despite the situation. “I won’t hurt you.” A pause. “I would never hurt you, Caitlin.”

A growl escapes her blue lips and her features twist into a sneer. “I told you already, my name is Killer Frost.”

“Your name,” he says and takes a step forward without even thinking. “Is Caitlin Snow.”

He barely has time to properly dodge the first icicle that flies towards him the moment he finishes his sentence, the cold sting of ice leaving a clean cut through his forearm. He hisses, bites down a ‘what gives’; there’s no time to assess how much damage is done or to ask questions, not when his ears catch the tell tale sound of another imminent attack. Cisco manages to move - nearly losing his footing as he does - and takes cover just in time. A volley of sharp ice embeds itself in the tree trunk he’s hiding behind with a few thuds and his mind is reeling with realization, with doubt - with fear.

He hadn’t expected her to make the first move, or at least not like this. He’d seen the way she’d looked at him, all those times before when they clashed,  _ Killer Frost vs Team Flash.  _ There’d been something in her eyes, something awfully familiar in the way she’d looked at him - a spark of recognition, he’d thought - even as she stood tall dressed in her ‘villain’s costume’ and antagonized The Flash and the rest of the team over and over. But the very first icicle would never fly towards him, regardless of whether he was the one engaging her or not.

And yet now... 

Cisco shook his head. 

Killer Frost or Caitlin, this woman across the field wants nothing more than a fight, and if that’s what she wants… That’s what Cisco - no, not Cisco, _Vibe_ \- is going to give her. 

He tugs his glasses down and lets out a breath just as he hears the crunching of snow underneath her boots. 

The dance begins. 

It’s a blur of colour and movement, of deadly ice and snow, of tree branches falling. It’s the sound of panting from the exertion, of gasps and hisses when both become too slow, too tired to fully dodge something that has been sluggish aimed at them. They are both getting sloppy, but Cisco has a feeling they aren’t really trying to do significant damage to each other - they never had. It’s stubbornness, the never knowing - or really wanting - to quit that has them going, that keeps them in this deadly dance. She’s much closer to him than she’s ever been before, trading blow after blow, matching each strike with one of her own, and he can feel the cold that radiates from her body. It pierces through his jacket, through his skin, and he has to remind himself to not let it encase his heart like it has hers.

Cisco is not sure how they end up like this, breathing the same crisp - now early morning - air. His hand is right above where her heart is, ready to blast it; in turn her hand holds a sharp icicle right above his heart, ready to pierce it at any second. They’re panting, trying to catch their breaths, bodies nearly flushed together. Their gazes are locked - she’d managed to knock his glasses off during the fight - and there’s something there, something behind her eyes that he can now so clearly see. Her lips part and a whispered _ ‘oh’  _ is all he hears before something, some invisible force runs through his body and shakes him to his core. A dull pain begins where his heart is and slowly spreads through his chest, and for a moment he thinks this is it, that Killer Frost decided to finally be true to her name - except the icicle she’s holding falls to the ground with a small  _ thud _ and there’s not even a single drop of blood in it.

She gives him an incredulous look and suddenly slaps his hand away, taking a step back and then another. One of her hands moves to rest just above where her heart is and she glances down and nearly stumbles, but when Cisco tries to reach out for her, she recoils. 

“What have you done to me?” she asks in a shaky voice that he hadn’t heard in so long. “Did you- did you just blast me? Did you blast my heart?”

His mouth falls open. “What- No, Caitlin, I would never-,” he pauses the moment he feels his body trying to give up on him, the dull ache in his chest spreading further and further through his limbs. He stumbles but manages to catch himself just as she did, his hand flying towards the place on his chest her icicle had been against. “... Did you pierce mine?” he suddenly asks and immediately regrets it the moment he notices the look on her face. 

She presses her lips in a thin line and her jaw locks. “If I’d done that, you wouldn’t be standing - or even breathing - for that matter. Does that answer your dumb question?”

Cisco manages to only nod in reply, his eyes falling on the discarded icicle at his feet. The first rays of sunlight slowly begin to filter through the area, the light dancing against the snow and ice. From the corner of his eye he can see their shadows becoming more and more prominent until they are like a painting of two dark figures against a white canvas, looking down, each with a hand pressing against their hearts. It’s an eerie sight, especially when he realizes she’s seeing the exact same thing he is, and his eyes instantly snap upwards. Their gazes meet and it’s like the world stops and ceases to exist, like all the planets and the stars have aligned, like all the songs make sense. It shakes him to his very core - like that sudden burst of something had done before - that all that fighting, all that antagonizing, all that talk about wanting his best friend back was out of… Love. 

The word sounds foreign in his head and leaves an odd taste in his mouth, but his eyes go wide - and so do hers. Her eyes, which had been a dulled blue, are back to the familiar warm brown he’d missed so much. Her hair is still white but even then it’s still  _ her,  _ it’s still Caitlin standing right in front of him, giving Cisco the exact same look he knows he’s giving her. He wants to speak, to say something - anything at all, at this point - but when he opens his mouth no sound comes out. He waits, tries again - but to no avail, and it’s when the words finally reach the tip of his tongue that he feels a shift in the air that chills him to his bones.

Her eyes are back to sharp blue.

They narrow as she regards him with something akin of disdain, of disgust, and then before Cisco has time to process what’s happening, she’s gone. Only the icicles and her footprints remain, along with the dull feeling on his heart and his raging thoughts, and the imprinted image of the two shadowy figures - the two lovers - against the snow. 

It’s only much later, after he goes back to Star Labs and lets himself be scolded by the entirety of Team Flash for his recklessness, after he manages to shrug his Vibe jacket off and peel off the shirt underneath, that he notices the thick black lines that run deep into the skin of his chest.

**** **

Cisco doesn’t say anything to anyone, not even when the lines begin to shift and stretch and loop the more he and Caitlin see each other out in the field. It doesn’t take a genius to be able to put two and two together, especially when she acts all high and mighty and colder than before, and avoids eye contact with him at all costs. But there’s something else about her, a warmth behind her eyes that hadn’t been there; the same he’d seen emerge when her eyes had gone back to their natural brown that day in the forest. It’s faint, barely noticeable, but it’s  _ there  _ and part of him hopes that maybe, just maybe, he’ll have Caitlin back soon. 

He doesn’t.

It’s Christmas day and Barry throws a party for the team at Joe’s house. Cisco is not in the mood to go so he doesn’t show up, doesn’t even do as much as answer his phone when Barry calls or even when he texts. His apartment feels empty, devoid of warmth and cheer and the Christmas spirit, even if the tree he and Caitlin took so much care in picking out and decorating still stands against the far corner of his living room. A box of take-away sits half empty on his coffee table, along with an impressive collection of empty beer bottles he’d accumulated over the weeks. There may even be a pizza box somewhere on his floor as well.

If Caitlin was around, she’d scold him for it.

The thought makes him wince as the lines on his chest, around his heart - metaphorically or not - tighten and loose like a coil. He had discarded his shirt after deciding to lounge on the old couch, the ink fully on display for no one to see but him. Cisco still hadn’t told Barry or anyone about it and he didn’t plan to, not with everyone suddenly questioning his capacity for decision-making when it came to Killer Frost. He’d hesitated, more than once and more than he had ever before, to actually fight her and the sudden shift hadn’t gone as unnoticed as he’d hoped. The looks and the questions came and were left unanswered - he didn’t know what to tell them then and he still doesn’t know what to tell them now. 

It’s dark when he is finally drawn out of his thoughts and the only light in the room is coming from the colourful little Christmas lights that Caitlin had picked out, the same ones he still refused to turn off. They blink and fade and shift, cold blues followed by warm greens and reds and it’s so  _ her  _ that he can’t stop the way the corners of his mouth twitch upwards in a small smile. 

There a hesitant knock on his door and his eyes snap towards the old  _ Star Wars  _ clock by his television. He manages to catch a glimpse at the red angry numbers when the tiny lights of the tree fade for a moment and he frowns. It’s a quarter to midnight so there’s a fat chance it’s just one of his neighbors asking to borrow some sugar or some eggs; he discards the idea it may be Barry or any of the others really. Caitlin briefly flashes in his mind but he shakes that thought off as soon as it arrives, and since no one else of importance comes to mind he decides to just ignore the knocking entirely.

But the knocking becomes insistent, becomes harder to ignore as the minutes tick by and Cisco lets out a growl of frustration and pulls himself up. He pads across the cold wooden flooring barefoot and doesn’t even think about stealing a glance through the peephole to see who’s on the other side. Cisco yanks the door open and the words of annoyance, the angry  _ ‘what is it’, _ dies in his throat the moment he realizes who’s at his door in the middle of the night.

It’s Killer Frost.

Except her eyes aren’t the dulled blue he’d been expecting them to be; instead they’re brown and they widen at the sight of him - he thinks she may have flinched as well, but perhaps he imagined it. Neither say anything as they stand there, face to face, and he notices for the first time that she has forgone the entire Killer Frost getup for something more casual, and is actually wearing the soft baby blue scarf Cisco had gifted her for Christmas last year. He wants to take that as a further sign that this is  _ her,  _ that this is Caitlin standing at his door on Christmas day like some miracle or even a gift from the universe, but her hair is still white and there’s still cold emanating from her in waves that makes him shiver.

That’s when he realizes he’s not wearing a shirt. 

Cisco panics, both inwards and outwards, and wonders what the odds are of her not noticing the inked lines that run through his chest. It’s a lost cause trying to cover them now, especially when the bright light of the hallway they are standing  _ right  _ underneath of makes everything as clear as day, and when he notices her eyes flickering downwards from his face, it’s like he’s watching it all happen in slow motion - her eyes go wide, her lips part in a soundless gasp and one of her hands move up to cover her mouth. Their gazes meet again after a minute and there’s a storm of emotions behind her eyes, nearly perfectly concealed behind the moisture that is making her chocolate orbs shine and sparkle in the light. Ever since he’d noticed the lines on his skin, Cisco had been wondering - and selfishly hoping, really - if perhaps she had some as well. Were they as intricate as his own? Did they rest above her heart just as his did? And more importantly, were they connected to him?

He sees her take a step forward, followed by another and she’s suddenly as close to him as she’d been that night in the forest. Her free hand moves, hesitates for a moment; then it moves again and her cold fingers are just shy of touching the skin where his soulmark rests. The first contact is barely there, almost feather-like, and even if his mind is reeling and he feels like breaching away as fast as possible, he finds himself rooted to the spot. She looks at him, really  _ looks  _ at him, and then there’s a firm, cold press and Cisco feels her tracing the familiar inked lines. She takes her time, carefully going through every soft curve and every sharp line, and he nearly forgets how to breathe at how absolutely serene and peaceful her expression is as she goes.

It feels like years since he’d last seen her like that, completely relaxed and with her guard down.

Time stills around them, all the noise drowned out. Cisco lets out a breath when she finishes her motions and retracts her hand, and it’s both a relief and a loss of contact that he hadn't realized he’d been so deprived of. She looks at him and there’s an unasked question in her eyes that doesn’t go unnoticed by him. He’s moving before he can even fully register what is happening. Killer Frost - no,  _ Caitlin  _ \- walks past him and enters his apartment for the first time in weeks and he watches her go, watches her glance down at the mess on his coffee table, watches the way her face scrunches up at the sight in the low light. Cisco almost laughs. 

He closes the door and moves to stand close to her, just shy of stepping into her personal space. She’s frozen in place, eyes wide as she takes in the tree still standing in the corner of his living room, the lights she’d picked out from the small shop still flickering and shifting as they did the day they’d plugged them in. 

“You kept it,'' she says and it’s both a question and a statement. 

He doesn’t really know what to say to that. How would she react if he told her the whole truth, if he told her  _ ‘Of course I kept it, we picked it out and decorated it together and it means so much to me’ _ ? Would she turn around and walk away? Or would she stay? Cisco doesn’t want her to leave, especially now that he has her back - even if it’s just for a fleeting moment -, so he murmurs a soft  _ ‘yeah I did’  _ instead. She turns fully to look at him, to  _ really  _ look at him, and he knows then that she’s reading between the lines behind his eyes. And that she  _ knows.  _

Cisco’s shoulders immediately tense up when he feels her move, hands ready to reach out in case she’s about to walk towards the door, but Caitlin simply takes hold of his wrist and tugs gently. The touch is ice cold and he nearly hisses out loud as gosebumps form in his skin. She pauses at this reaction, eyes flickering down towards her own hand and then back at him, and the grip goes slack. Cisco stops her, however, when she attempts to fully retract her hand by placing his own above hers. 

Caitlin raises an eyebrow; he just shakes his head. “It’s alright,” he tells her, “It’s just a little colder than I expected.”

She doesn’t look much convinced and Cisco begins to wonder if she’s really breaking through more than just the surface, if Caitlin is slowly but surely taking control back from Killer Frost, and is still dealing with all the changes that come with it. She bites down her lip and chews on it in a gesture that’s all too familiar, and even if she still looks unsure, even if he can still see the doubt in her eyes, she still manages to give him a small nod. They are moving, her tugging him towards his small bedroom and him just letting her lead the way, even if he’s unsure of why she’s taking him there. 

The room is dark and messy, clothes scattered and sheets thrown out, and he’s suddenly self conscious about it. Caitlin doesn’t seem to mind. 

She lets go of his hand and moves slowly towards the window, carefully toeing to avoid stepping and tripping on things as she goes. He stays rooted to the spot, straining to see what she’s doing, until his dark curtain is pulled back and moonlight filters into the room. Cisco blinks against the sudden light and it takes a second for his eyes to adjust to it; takes him even longer to realize exactly what she’s doing.

The soft scarf goes first, the baby blue material falling to the floor by her feet, followed by the thick jacket. She’s halfway through pulling her long sleeved shirt up when Cisco snaps out of whatever trance he’d been stuck in and takes a step forward, hands outstretched. He clears his throat, hesitates - he’s not even sure why - and in that time the shirt is off and with the other stuff on his floor. 

Caitlin finally turns to face him and he can’t see her face, shrouded by the shadows of moonlight that make her white hair glow like a soft halo. Her right hand moves, palm outstretched in his direction, clearly in invitation, and he’s suddenly nervous and unsure on what this all means. His eyes dart between her hand and her face, and even if he can’t see her expression he knows she’s relaxed. Her shoulders are low, unguarded, and Cisco gets proof once again that this is her, this is Caitlin, and that she trusts him enough to be around her like this. 

_ ‘This is like when you’re playing a game’ _ , he thinks to himself,  _ ‘and you hit that point of no return, where the only options are to either turn around and walk away for a while, or to take that leap and see things through.’  _

He wonders if he’s ready to take that leap, but the ink on his chest seems to have the answer all figured out for him. A sudden jolt, like that one he’d felt that night in the forest, makes him take an involuntary step forward, and Cisco just takes that as a sign. He’s moving and then his warm hand touches her much colder one, and he lets her pull him to her until they’re almost flushed together. There’s still cold emanating from her skin but she feels warmer than before and it surprises him.

She’s not done surprising him.

Caitlin shifts and suddenly the light hits her in an angle that allows him to finally see her face… and to finally see the black lines inked on her chest, right above her heart. They’re not as jagged as his, but they twist in soft waves, like ripples of water, and remind him of the breaches he can open. Cisco gasps when the realization fully hits and he looks at her with wide eyes. 

“Is- Is this for real?” he can’t keep the disbelief from his voice as he speaks. “Caitlin, I- Am I dreaming?”

She smiles, and for the first time in weeks, it reaches her eyes. “It’s real, Cisco,” she murmurs and squeezes his hand in reassurance, “I’m here.”

Tears burn in his eyes and he lets them fall freely without shame and she mirrors him almost immediately. He lets out a wet laugh and moves his free hand to cup her cheek; she leans towards the touch and closes her eyes. 

It’s peaceful and it feels right and Cisco knows he’s definitely going to tease her later for walking into his room and pulling her shirt off  _ like that _ , but for now he’s content with the comfortable silence that falls between them. 

It’s much later, when they’re both lying in each other’s arms, that she looks at him and utters the words that have his heart nearly leaping out of his chest.

  
_ “This is home.” _


End file.
